(We'll be) Counting Stars
by shan14
Summary: Mackenzie doesn't mean to end up in hospital hours before broadcast. Honestly.


**A/N:** Another thing that I started forever ago and finally got back to tonight and then gave a strange song-lyric title to. Mackenzie's pov which I always find harder but was actually a lot of fun this time. Must be something to do with the fuzziness of her thoughts. Set post 1x09.

* * *

Mackenzie doesn't mean to end up in hospital hours before broadcast.

Honestly.

But somewhere between Bryan hanging over her shoulder and the constant threat to Will's job and Sloan muttering in her ear about the debt ceiling collapsing and killing Casey Anthony underneath it (at least she thinks that's what she said; the concussion's made everything a little fuzzy) she ends up running into a badly rigged lighting stand and knocking herself unconscious.

When she wakes, minutes later, she's cradled gently in someone's arms. They're warm and comfortable and she sighs gently, curling up closer and fluttering her eyes shut. There isn't any pain yet and so she lets herself drift in a wonderfully warm state of bliss.

"Don't you dare fall asleep again," a voice mutters gruffly, and it takes her a second to realise it's Will's.

"What?" she murmurs. At least she thinks that what she murmurs. From the hazy look she receives from Will she suspects it may have sounded less than intelligible. She has her head in his lap and she can feel where one of his hands is digging into her shoulder – each individual finger gripping the soft material of her blouse tight. Without moving she attempts to swallow past the blocked feeling in her ears and tries to clear her throat. "What happened?" she asks again.

There's a terrible pain starting to shoot across her forehead, concentrated in her right temple – and she can already feel the cold, tacky trickle of blood. Her head is muzzy and pounding and Will's voice feels both too near and far away – it's a bit like she's floating on cotton candy; liable to drift off at any moment.

"I said," Will murmurs determinedly, "don't fall asleep again, at least not until Maggie comes back with the first aid kit."

She blinks fuzzily and glances around, wincing at the harsh lights of the studio and the haze of faces swimming before her. They all look mildly worried and Mackenzie tries to raise a hand to hide her face and only manages to collide it into Will's side.

"All right everyone," he growls, understanding her movements "She's fine, go back to work."

Mackenzie grumbles a little and tries to sit up, but Will pulls her back slowly. He has a hand wrapped around her shoulders and resting under her arm and he uses it to settle her more securely in his lap. "Not so fast," he warns her, pulling her up a little against his chest.

She sighs deeply – this is the first time she's been held by him since Valentine's Day and despite the raging headache it feels marvelous. "I'm not going anywhere," she murmurs, slumping back into his shoulder and Will has a little frown above his eyebrows that matches his lips.

"How do you feel?" he questions softly, and Mackenzie blinks rapidly to try and keep her eyes awake.

"My head hurt's," she complains because whilst at first there had been nothing but a lovely, numb white – now it feels like hundreds of elephants are fleeing the savanna _via her brain_.

"Will my head _hurts_," she whines, just in case he missed it the first time, "And my stomach doesn't feel well I think – I think I'm going to be sick."

And Will pulls her up quickly, cradling a hand behind her neck as she coughs into his shoulder roughly. It hurts to cough, each spasm ricocheting up her spine and around her skull and Will rocks her gently and whispers "_careful, Mackenzie, careful_," in her ear and though she isn't sick she still feels like the ocean is revolting in her stomach.

"Dizzy," she mutters as he settles her back down because the movement has sent stars spinning before her eyes.

"Concussion?"

She thinks that might be Jim's voice muttering above her. Will turns his head to look up at him and she immediately misses the warmth of his body folded around her own. She tries to hug herself further into his side and he lifts her body so that she's settled in the crook of his elbow. "Paramedic's are on there way," the voice that might-be-Jim informs them and Mackenzie stiffens at the thought of hospital.

It's not that she's inherently opposed to them, only the last time she'd been in one it had been a small room that smelt of strong disinfectant in Pakistan. "I'm okay," she tries to tell the boys but her mouth is refusing to cooperate and Will isn't watching her anyway. He and probably-definitely-Jim are talking back and forth and the thumb at the base of Mackenzie's neck is moving gently from side to side, lulling her to sleep.

"_Don't_ fall asleep," Will suddenly erupts and she wants to tell him that he should stop being so comfortable if he wants that – instead she settles for glaring at his forehead where the frown has grown so deep she's concerned.

"I'm okay," she mutters and tries to wave her hand in front of her face to settle him but her arms feel like jelly and it only gets as far as collapsing against his sweater. Her fingers curl into his clothes and she can feel the soft-hard planes of his skin beneath and even though she's pretty sure (between the pain and the dizziness and the nausea) that things are a lot worse than she wishes, she counts the feeling of being held by Will tight as a victory.

The paramedic's arrive soon after and she thinks perhaps Charlie has come also – she sees a flash of a bowtie in between the lights being shone in her eyes and the hands holding her forehead and chin firmly – and when they try to get her to move she thinks she must whine in protest because suddenly Will's hand is clasping her own.

She settles a little and blinks away the tears in her eyes – she doesn't even know when she started crying – and Will's hand squeezes her own as they start moving. She thinks that might mean that he's not leaving her and with that thought settled safe in her heart she lets the harsh white lights and the ringing in her ears take control.

ooo

She comes too and it's dark in the hospital.

Her head feels marginally better but she's tired now – it's no fun being kept awake through multiple exams and then being woken every hour for check ups. Her eyes are sore and her mouth still feels disgusting but at least the sharp pain above her brows is receding into the background. She can move a bit in the bed without upsetting her body too much and she takes the opportunity to reach for the glass of water by her side.

It's quiet on the ward – her room is curtained off and outside the nurses pad softly and talk in murmurs. She can hear the trundle of a bed at the far end of the corridor but other than that it's still and calm and she supposes it must be past midnight. They're keeping her overnight with the promise that she not return to work tomorrow and even though it's such a vital time she's almost glad for the ban. She can avoid Sloan and Bryan and the job of rebuilding Newsnight post-Casey Anthony for at least another few days.

There's a snuffle beside her, and she freezes before the soft outline of a body slumped over in the chair by the bed becomes visible. She almost thinks she's imagining it, at first, but there sits Will with his bulky frame and still in his jacket. His head is tipped backwards and she can remember a hundred nights walking into the lounge room and finding him asleep on the sofa with all the lights and the television still on.

For a moment she considers waking him. She wants to see his eyes in the half-cast light and hear his voice whispering to her like he had when she was cradled in his arms, but that might mean talking and realizations of the time and the soft blush on Will's checks when he does something reminiscent of years ago and the last thing she wants is for him to leave. At least if she lets him sleep he'll still be here in the morning.

She doesn't want to move on the bed but she shifts her head to the side so she's facing him and lets her body slip laxly into sleep again. They'll wake her soon to test her head and her eyes and Will might leave then, she ponders; and he must have slipped in sometime after her last check up because he wasn't here the last time she was awake.

He must be so tired, then, to fall asleep straight away and her last thought before slumber is that it's nice to be cared about by him again; enough that he'd come here even when exhausted, even when there wasn't a need.

ooo

Hours and many rude awakenings later she slips gently between consciousness and sleep to the feeling of a finger brushing feather soft across her wrist and the delicate press of lips on her forehead.

"I'll be back soon," a voice whispers, and then, "be good," like she were a small child and likely to misbehave.

She wants to argue back but he's probably correct in his assumptions – she's not the greatest fan of nurses prodding her in her sleep and has already started planning a counterattack – and Will's out the door anyway.

She saves the complaint for another day and instead settles back safe and warm; and sleeps.


End file.
